This Too Shall Last

by K. J. Ramsey

  Repentance is a hospitality of heart to God’s heart, holding every moment, molecule, and human connection in an unfolding story that ends not in disappointment but in joy. Grace invites us to change by stepping into that story through trust formed one courageous encounter at a time. Courage is the virtue that empowers repentance.31 It is choosing to inhabit our broken bodies and imperfect relationships with trust and attention, especially when we are scared, because we believe—even just a tiny bit—that God goes with us and has named us loved.

  Jesus’ command to be courageous in the presence of suffering32 is one we all can repeatedly attempt to obey with hope because courage is not a possession but a practice. Courage is not the absence of anxiety but the practice of trusting we are held and loved no matter what. It is facing the present moment with open eyes and willingness to participate in God’s story of making all things new, even when our world is falling apart, our bodies are breaking in terrible ways, and we don’t know how we’ll survive one more hard thing.

  Repentance forms the shape of the cross and resurrection in our stories as we choose to practice the virtue of courage every single day. As a virtue, courage forms Christ’s life in us over time, as that which is presently difficult slowly becomes the habit of our heart. N. T. Wright elucidates this power: “Virtue . . . is what happens when someone has made a thousand small choices requiring effort and concentration to do something which is good and right, but which doesn’t ‘come naturally’—and then, on the thousand and first time, when it really matters, they find that they do what’s required ‘automatically’ . . . virtue is what happens when wise and courageous choices have become ‘second nature.’ ”33

  Every moment, every day, we are invited to participate in Love’s intersection with time. Repentance is remembering the ever-present possibility of participating in the ever-present kingdom of God. Courage faces the present as a place to participate in Love touching and transforming time. It moves from defeat to desire, accepting and doing the next thing, however small it might be, in faith that we are participating in God’s unshakable, lasting kingdom.34

  Courage is the act of repentance, choosing communion with God and others in the places we feel ashamed, apathetic, rejected, exhausted, distracted, and defeated. It is living our baptismal identity in the daily drowning of our old self and the rising of the new. This morning it was standing under nearly scalding water to soothe my stiff spine, acting in hope that today could hold more than pain. This afternoon it was sensing doubt creeping inside that my writing doesn’t matter and others don’t care, then stopping work to sit still for ten minutes, practicing centering prayer, absorbing the reality that God always cares. Courage is noticing the swell of self-importance and drowning it by considering others’ needs. It is refusing to use pain and suffering as an excuse to be irritable and selfish and asking for forgiveness every time I’m mean or dismissive. It is holding a cup of tea across from someone new, holding space in my heart to treat their story as sacred and our connection as possible. Repentance wraps my hands, our hands, around the cross and allows God to form its shape in our lives.

  Courage is the virtue the entire body of Christ needs to walk the tightrope tension of God’s kingdom coming to recreate this world. Through courage, we respond to God’s love by showing up, again and again, to be seen, known, and loved together. Courage empowers us to listen where we normally would defend, to witness pain instead of judging it, to acknowledge failure as room to grow, and to sit with discomfort like it’s a dawn, not a death.

  Through the virtue of courage, our ordinary lives are transfigured from death to life. Our lives are physiologically and spiritually expanded to see and hear more goodness than our old eyes and ears could perceive. We who have so thoroughly tasted the bitterness of death grow more able to savor the goodness of life. When we stop rejecting our lives by spending all our energy on seeking rescue, we have energy left to taste and see the goodness that is here. We find God’s love in the small crevices of a life slowed and shattered by suffering. I sense God’s sustaining grace in the scent of the rosemary I just passed, noticing its bloom for the first time and breathing a sigh of relief after working hard all day. I feel the warmth of the evening air on my face and prize its presence in anticipation of tomorrow’s chilly rain. I can hold each moment—the beautiful and the brutal—and squeeze it like an orange for all its juice. Here, with Christ in me, with Christ around me, in the presence of friends and family near and far, is there any moment that does not hold the possibility of holy joy? Broken apart by suffering, I now hold space to soak in all of life as places where God is seeking me with joy. We, the fellowship of the broken, become the best holders of joy.

  When we live in the courage of repentance, we notice with hope and wonder that God sustains every blossom and breath. And in the noticing, we are sustained and renewed. Joy is a matter of attention, a mediation of being willing to see suffering, an expectancy of gratitude, a hospitality of the heart formed moment by moment as we live our ordinary lives in the presence of the God who is here.

  This is your one life. The scorched earth of your suffering—the daily fight of disease, disorders, grief, trauma, abuse, loss, and unrealized dreams and desires—is the ground where God is breathing new life. You won’t see it, you won’t feel it, you won’t become it until you stand on the ground of your life with courage today. And when you do, Jesus will stand with you, sustaining you with grace and making you new.

  Through repentance, you and I continually turn and discover we are not slaves of suffering or prisoners of pain but daughters and sons, being formed to reign with Jesus over a kingdom that will last.

  NOTES

  1 Theologian William Willimon, reflecting on Jesus’ baptism, writes, “Whatever the gospel means, we tell ourselves, it could not mean death.” William Willimon, “Repent,” in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2014), 7.

  2 J. R. R. Tolkien writes, “As the hound follows the hare, never ceasing in its running, ever drawing nearer in the chase, with unhurrying and steady pace, so does God follow the fleeing soul by his divine grace. And though in sin or in human love, away from God it seeks to hide itself, divine grace follows after, unwearyingly follows ever after, till the soul feels its pressure forcing it to turn to him alone in that never ending pursuit.” J. R. R. Tolkien, taken from The Neumann Press Book of Verse (Long Prairie, MN: Neumann Press, 1988), quoted in James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity Today (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2010), 242.

  3 Willimon, “Repent,” 9–10.

  4 Matt. 3:2.

  5 Matt. 3:16–17.

  6 Julie Canlis, A Theology of the Ordinary (Wenatchee, WA: Godspeed, 2017), 34–35.

  7 My thinking about communion has been profoundly influenced by the writing of theologian John Zizioulas, whose work describes the heart of being human as reflecting the life of the Trinity in communion with God and one another. John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997) and Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church (New York: T&T Clark, 2006).

  8 Canlis, A Theology of the Ordinary, 34.

  9 Ibid., 35.

  10 Henri J. M. Nouwen, Reaching Out, special ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 159.

  11 Col. 3:10.

  12 William W. Vine, The New Strong’s Concise Concordance and Vine’s Concise Dictionary (Nashville: Nelson, 1999), 311.

  13 Simone Weil, “The Love of God and Affliction,” in Simone Weil: Essential Writings, ed. Eric O. Springsted (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998), 53.

  14 2 Cor. 7:10.

  15 Rom. 12:1–2.

  16 Saint Patrick’s prayer is cited in Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Christ, My Companion: Meditations on the Prayer of St. Patrick (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008), 10.

  17 Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an
Instant Society (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 144.

  18 Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation (New York: Bantam, 2011), 39.

  19 Thomas Merton writes, “We get a name in baptism. That is because the depths of our soul are stamped, by that holy sacrament, with a supernatural identification which will eternally tell us who we were meant to be. Our baptism, which drowns us in the death of Christ, summons upon us all the sufferings of our life: their mission is to help us work out the pattern of our identity received in the sacrament.” Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island (New York: Barnes and Noble, 2003), 81.

  20 Simone Weil asserts that there are two things piercing enough to penetrate our souls with the love of God—beauty and affliction. Weil, “The Love of God and Affliction,” 41–71.

  21 Curt Thompson, “Create Compassionate Spaces,” interview with Jessica Honegger, Going Scared, podcast audio, September 12, 2018, https://jessicahonegger.com/podcast/episode-30-create-compassionate-spaces-with-curt-thompson/.

  22 Siegel, Mindsight.

  23 2 Cor. 4:16.

  24 Elena W. Adlaf et al., “Adult-Born Neurons Modify Excitatory Synaptic Transmission to Existing Neurons,” Elife (January 30, 2017), https://elifesciences.org/articles/19886.

  25 Elena P. Moreno-Jiménez et al., “Adult Hippocampal Neurogenesis Is Abundant in Neurologically Healthy Subjects and Drops Sharply in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease,” Nature Medicine 25 (April 2019): 554–81.

  26 Boris Cheval et al., “Avoiding Sedentary Behaviors Requires More Cortical Resources Than Avoiding Physical Activity: An EEG Study,” Neuropsychologia 119 (October 2018): 68–80.

  27 Curt Thompson, “Spirituality, Neuroplasticity, and Personal Growth,” interview, Biola University Center for Christian Thought, The Table, video, March 7, 2013, https://cct.biola.edu/spirituality-neuroplasticity-and-personal-growth-curt-thompson-full-interview/.

  28 Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth (New York: HarperOne, 2018).

  29 Joshua J. Knabb and Veola E. Vazquez, “A Randomized Controlled Trial of a 2-Week Internet-Based Contemplative Prayer Program for Christians with Daily Stress,” Spirituality in Clinical Practice 5, no. 1 (March 2018): 37.

  30 Jeffrey Zimmerman, “Neuro-Narrative Therapy: Brain Science, Narrative Therapy, Poststructuralism, and Preferred Identities,” Journal of Systemic Therapies 36, no. 2 (2017): 12–26.

  31 As C. S. Lewis writes, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality.” C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 161.

  32 John 16:33.

  33 N. T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 20–21.

  34 Emily P. Freeman beautifully uses the phrase “do the next right thing in love” in her helpful book The Next Right Thing: A Simple, Soulful Practice for Making Life Decisions (Grand Rapids: Revell, 2019). The idea of simply doing the next thing has grounded my life in everyday courage ever since I came across the poem “Do the Next Thing” as a college freshman. In a season of loss and disorientation, I was emboldened by the simplicity not of knowing how I would make it through everything but of focusing on just doing and surviving the next thing. We can’t have faith for all our future days; we have faith for today. Courage to do the next right thing pulls our lives forward in the trajectory of the kingdom and shapes us to be people deeply connected to Jesus because we rely on him for our every step.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  We are more aspen than oak, reaching skyward in hope, glorious in waving gold, both our beauty and survival formed and sustained in interdependence.

  The truest truth about myself is that I am one whom God loves, and in his love, I am the recipient of the lavish grace of being loved by his people. I am more aspen than oak because of the body of Christ. This book exists because great grace has upheld and nourished me in the form of people scattered across the years of my life, standing with the outstretched hands of Jesus, pulling me into the embrace of redemption. For these words made flesh, I give God thanks.

  Mom and Dad, you raised me to be courageous. You steeped my life in the Word of God so thoroughly that when the time came that I couldn’t even open the Word, it was still reverberating and audible, hidden in my heart. My tenacity is in large part the inheritance of your example of diligence and grit. McKenzie, my sister, it is a bittersweet honor to learn the courage of repentance alongside you in the crucible of autoimmune disease. Courage is choosing to step into the dark, especially when it is scary, because we know God goes with us. Tenacity is the confidence of courage practiced over time. It is a joy to watch God making you tenacious. Tucker and Marco, my brothers, it has been beautiful to watch you build your families on the foundation of courage these last few years. Mom and Dad Ramsey, your kindness is a bright spot in my life. Thank you for raising Ryan into the most loyal, kind man I’ve ever known.

  The church has encircled my life in loving-kindness, and though each passing year of my life has further revealed her need for wholeness, I am who I am because of a lifetime planted, rooted, and growing in the local church. To the church of my baptism and childhood and to my pastor, Jim Mascow, thank you for shaping me in the rhythms of grace. PJ, thank you for modeling the heart of Jesus in ordinary, steady faithfulness. To the churches of my adulthood, especially New City East Lake and New City Fellowship, thank you for giving me the sweetest, most tangible taste of the coming kingdom of God I have ever received. Thank you for giving me a vision of God’s commitment to the weakest and poorest and for showing the world a small picture of how he is uniting all people to one another and himself. To our pastor, Jim Pickett, thank you for leading us in the courage of vulnerability. Your willingness to walk into the dark has made Ryan and me people of light.

  This book is the gift of my education, the fruit of many humble, faithful educators who took a nerdy kid who loved learning and taught her that knowledge rooted in love can change the world. I thank God especially for the beauty I encountered at Covenant College in professors and fellow students set aflame in amazement at Christ’s love redeeming everything. Kelly Kapic, you shaped me more than you probably realize. From the first day of Doctrine I, your sense of wonder over the majestic mystery of God invited me to live my whole life as worship. Thank you for seeing potential in my words, connecting me to Zondervan, and offering encouragement along the way.

  The message of this book is that grace is found in the body of Christ, and I figured if I was going to write that, then I had better live it, down to the dirt of how this book was crafted. These words were formed and upheld by a literary community, for whom I am especially grateful because this book happened to be written during one of the hardest set of circumstances I have ever endured. Thank you to my writing friends for pouring encouragement into me through every step of this process. You each embody the wisdom of the kingdom, that scarcity is a lie and abundance is both our inheritance and our surprising method. We raise our voices in a chorus that is stronger and sweeter because it is shared. Meredith McDaniel, your kindness has been like manna in a desert. Lore Wilbert, your friendship has helped me relearn how to trust, and your support of my words has helped me better believe who I am in Christ. Bethany Rydmark, your tireless willingness to share life with me across a million Voxer messages has been such a surprising, fun gift. I can’t thank you enough for gathering Team K.J. to pray me through those grueling, final weeks of finishing my manuscript. Team K.J., when I think of how you prayed, sent messages, cards, gifts, and even my favorite flowers (peonies!), my eyes well up with tears. Summer Gross, Jodi Grubbs, Valerie Murray, Jena Meyerpeter, Heather Legge, Sue Fulmore, Jenna Dunson, Julianna Chapman, Susan Ely, Katie Casselberry, Carol Collier, and Heidi Saballos, your generosity to pray really did spiritually lift my arms to keep typing when I was at the end of my strength. (Faith really is a communal fire we sto
ke together.) Thelma Nienhuis, thank you for being the giddiest supporter of my book. Your kindness is beautiful. Ronne Rock, sharing deadlines and prayers with you has been a gift. Chuck DeGroat, thank you for speaking with clarity and tenderness into my writing and trauma and for reading early bits of this book. To my larger writing community through hope*writers, thank you for being a community where generosity is the norm. Thank you to my agent, Andrew Wolgemuth. Your kindness and wisdom have infused me with strength in times when I felt afraid and uncertain of the worth of my words. Thank you for your patience. Thank you to my editor, Madison Trammel, for believing in me and this project before I even had a proposal and inviting me to dream bigger about who it could serve. Working with you has been a joy. Thank you to Katya Covrett for initially seeing the potential in my writing. Thank you to my marketer, Nathan Kroeze, for sharing and empowering a vision for marketing as a way of serving readers and creating community. Thank you to Alexis De Weese for marketing with joy and love.

  And to my dearest friends, in chapter 3 I wrote that “I am one who hopes because I am one who has been shaped by the hope of others, whose hurts are held in the hearts of others, and whose faith when fragile is augmented by the faith of those who are strong.” In those words, I most meant you. Carol Collier, my soul sister, your friendship is glistening grace; like dew, your presence so frequently refreshes my soul. Scott Collier, your courageous trust in Jesus while walking toward death was one of the most beautiful things I ever had the privilege of seeing. Scott and Carol, my only regret in writing this book is that I could not find a place fitting enough for your beautiful story. I’ll never forget sitting in your home this past February as the four of us shared the wonder of the joy of Jesus that comes in sorrow. In those moments, heaven touched earth. To Sarah Ocando, thank you for embodying the love that welcomes weakness. To Mish Moore, I hope you’re happy with how “our” book turned out. Your courage amazes me. Josh and Rachel Allen, you have been Christ to me and Ryan, standing with us in sorrow and welcoming us into your home. To Katie Casselberry and my other college roommates and suitemates from the beginning years of my illness, Jess Jeremiah, Olivia Pelts, Mish, Becca Elder, Emily Parke, and Rachel Cheng, you each taught me how to receive love in weakness, and without you I’m not sure I would have known how to let the community of faith support me all these years. There are so many other friends whose practical presence has given me and Ryan faith when our hope was nearly dry—small groups at church, college friends, friends through our time at Denver Seminary. For all of you, we are thankful.